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Old 30-11-2004, 04:17 PM
Monique Reed
 
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Default Edibility of ornamental Ipomoea batatas?

I received this query today and don't have any info. Can anyone offer
an answer or personal experience?

"are the tubers of marguarita & blackie ornamental ipomoea batatas
edible? we have been told they are called white sweet potatoes & can
be prepared the same as regular orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. i've
been unable to find information relating to edibility on several
websites."

All I have been able to find is a "No" at this informal website:

http://www.emilycompost.com/morning_glory.htm

Thanks,
Monique Reed
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Old 01-12-2004, 08:23 AM
David Hershey
 
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The following university site quotes Ball Seed which says tuberous
roots of ornamental sweet potato are edible. It seems logical that
they would be because the mutation was in leaf coloration. A lot of
websites say they form tubers but they are actually tuberous roots.
Even the website below confuses sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) with
potato (Solanum tuberosum). They are in different families. Ipomoea is
in Convolvulaceae and Solanum is in Solanaceae.

Production Guidelines for Four New Crops -- Osteospermum, Angelonia,
Calibrachoa & Ornamental Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas)
http://www.umass.edu/umext/floricult.../newcrops.html

This site below quotes the USDA's Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston,
South Carolina which says "‘Marguerite' seldom produces a "usable"
edible root and ‘Blackie' almost never does. If, by chance, such a
root is produced, there is no reason it could not be eaten."

http://www.mygardenguide.com/faq.html

David R. Hershey




Monique Reed wrote in message ...
I received this query today and don't have any info. Can anyone offer
an answer or personal experience?

"are the tubers of marguarita & blackie ornamental ipomoea batatas
edible? we have been told they are called white sweet potatoes & can
be prepared the same as regular orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. i've
been unable to find information relating to edibility on several
websites."

All I have been able to find is a "No" at this informal website:

http://www.emilycompost.com/morning_glory.htm

Thanks,
Monique Reed

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Old 01-12-2004, 02:39 PM
Iris Cohen
 
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A lot of websites say they form tubers but they are actually tuberous roots.


I never noticed the difference until someone here mentioned it. Sweet potatoes
and other tuberous roots look like tubers, but if you look carefully at the
eyes, they only sprout little feeder roots. Only a true tuber has eyes which
produce leaf buds.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra
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Old 01-12-2004, 05:01 PM
 
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In article ,
Monique Reed wrote:
I received this query today and don't have any info. Can anyone offer
an answer or personal experience?


I think you've gotten a good answer regarding edibility.

White sweet potatoes seem to be the most popular kinds in Korea and Japan.
The Korean greengrocers here all stock them and no other kinds. The ones
I see all have red skin. I find them dry and bland tasting, much inferior
to the usual moist orange or yellow fleshed kind, but perhaps in Korean
and Japanese cuisine they are prepared in a way that takes advantage of
the difference in culinary properties.
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Old 01-12-2004, 05:09 PM
 
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In article ,
Iris Cohen wrote:
A lot of websites say they form tubers but they are actually tuberous roots.

I never noticed the difference until someone here mentioned it. Sweet potatoes
and other tuberous roots look like tubers, but if you look carefully at the
eyes, they only sprout little feeder roots. Only a true tuber has eyes which
produce leaf buds.


AFAIK, they are tuberous roots, but they do produce shoots and leaves
as well as roots. They are propagated by breaking off these young
plants (slips) from the tuberous root and planting them. You get many
slips from one sweet potato.

It's been a long long time since I sprouted a sweet potato in water as
a houseplant -- I don't think kids do this any more because commercial
ones are now treated with a sprouting inhibitor. I suppose I could seek
out some organically grown ones. I don't remember just where the roots
and shoots sprout from -- if not from eyes, where?



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Old 01-12-2004, 09:11 PM
Iris Cohen
 
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I don't remember just where the roots
and shoots sprout from -- if not from eyes, where?

On a true tuber, leafy shoots spring from the eyes all over. On a tuberous
root, the leafy shoot would only come from the top, where it was joined to the
stem. Try it & tell me if that is correct.
All I know about these things is what happens in the refrigerator. White
potatoes sprout from the eyes; sweet potatoes eventually rot.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra
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Old 02-12-2004, 01:27 AM
MMMavocado
 
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On a sweet potato, there are little bumps, dimples, and folds, but no true
"eyes" in the sense of an axillary bud. Shoots appear more or less at random
on the surface, produced adventitiously.
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Old 02-12-2004, 03:08 AM
Iris Cohen
 
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Shoots appear more or less at random
on the surface, produced adventitiously.

Is there anything I can use to encourage the formation of shoots on a fleshy
root, such as elm, Ficus, or Crataegus? I need to make some root cuttings from
my hawthorn tree, as it doesn't root from branch cuttings. And the usual
tonics, like Superthrive, are to encourage root growth.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra
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Old 02-12-2004, 12:38 PM
Phred
 
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In article , wrote:
In article ,
Monique Reed wrote:
I received this query today and don't have any info. Can anyone offer
an answer or personal experience?


I think you've gotten a good answer regarding edibility.

White sweet potatoes seem to be the most popular kinds in Korea and Japan.
The Korean greengrocers here all stock them and no other kinds. The ones
I see all have red skin. I find them dry and bland tasting, much inferior
to the usual moist orange or yellow fleshed kind, but perhaps in Korean
and Japanese cuisine they are prepared in a way that takes advantage of
the difference in culinary properties.


The sweet bucks of my childhood (grown by my uncle and cooked with the
roast chook for that special Sunday dinner -- at midday, in the
tropics, for crissake! ) had a slightly greenish tinge internally
when cooked and a very slightly "stringy" texture (more visual than
physical). I don't remember their skin colour, but they were
*delicious* with a crisp outer shell from the oven roasting. :-)

I've got a patch of the orange fleshed kind in the backyard here; but
I admit they're basically just going wild (and doing it very tough due
to high temperatures and no rain) and I rarely think to harvest some
for a feed.

I'm told by a bloke who was breeding them here that the very sweet,
orange types are often used as a sweet (e.g. in desserts) in other
parts of the world; but it's not a common way of using them here in Oz
AFAIK.

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID



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Old 02-12-2004, 10:44 PM
Rona Yuthasastrakosol
 
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"Phred" wrote in message
...
In article ,

wrote:
In article ,
Monique Reed wrote:
I received this query today and don't have any info. Can anyone offer
an answer or personal experience?


I think you've gotten a good answer regarding edibility.

White sweet potatoes seem to be the most popular kinds in Korea and

Japan.
The Korean greengrocers here all stock them and no other kinds. The ones
I see all have red skin. I find them dry and bland tasting, much

inferior
to the usual moist orange or yellow fleshed kind, but perhaps in Korean
and Japanese cuisine they are prepared in a way that takes advantage of
the difference in culinary properties.



piggy-backing, but those sweet potatoes are most often used for tempura,
roasting, or candy-ing (such as the recipes at
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/swe...daigakuimo.htm in Japan.
Sometimes I see sweet potato bread or croissants (with the sweet potato used
as a filling), but the former three are the most common recipes, I believe.

--
***For e-mail, replace .com with .ca Sorry for the inconvenience!***

"[America] is filled with people who decided not to live in Europe. We had
people who really wanted to live in Europe, but didn't have the energy to go
back. We call them Canadians."
---Grover Norquist in Newsweek, November 22, 2004



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Old 04-12-2004, 12:16 AM
Chuck
 
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There is also a yam which grows in the southern Mexico wooded areas that is
edible but rather than Ipomea it is related to the Dioscorea group
(spelling?) and also has weak birth control properties. (I think diosgenin
is extracted from it, A preproduct of birth control medications. )

Chuck


"Rona Yuthasastrakosol" wrote in message
...
"Phred" wrote in message
...
In article ,

wrote:
In article ,
Monique Reed wrote:
I received this query today and don't have any info. Can anyone offer
an answer or personal experience?

I think you've gotten a good answer regarding edibility.

White sweet potatoes seem to be the most popular kinds in Korea and

Japan.
The Korean greengrocers here all stock them and no other kinds. The
ones
I see all have red skin. I find them dry and bland tasting, much

inferior
to the usual moist orange or yellow fleshed kind, but perhaps in Korean
and Japanese cuisine they are prepared in a way that takes advantage of
the difference in culinary properties.



piggy-backing, but those sweet potatoes are most often used for tempura,
roasting, or candy-ing (such as the recipes at
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/swe...daigakuimo.htm in Japan.
Sometimes I see sweet potato bread or croissants (with the sweet potato
used
as a filling), but the former three are the most common recipes, I
believe.

--
***For e-mail, replace .com with .ca Sorry for the inconvenience!***

"[America] is filled with people who decided not to live in Europe. We
had
people who really wanted to live in Europe, but didn't have the energy to
go
back. We call them Canadians."
---Grover Norquist in Newsweek, November 22, 2004





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Old 04-12-2004, 03:07 PM
Phred
 
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Default

In article , "Chuck" wrote:
There is also a yam which grows in the southern Mexico wooded areas that is
edible but rather than Ipomea it is related to the Dioscorea group
(spelling?) and also has weak birth control properties. (I think diosgenin
is extracted from it, A preproduct of birth control medications. )


My purple yam is shooting again -- in fact it had 50 new shoots
spread over several metres at last count. The root "tubers" are
edible, but the purple colour is a bit of a worry and I would never
had tried the things if I hadn't been told by reliable sources that I
could eat it. It also has aerial tubers (bulbils?) which will grow if
planted, but I don't know if they are edible (some of these things
aren't). Frankly, I reckon yams are over-rated and I probably
wouldn't eat them by choice beyond curiosity.

One of the local supermarkets has recently been flogging another type
of yam and, judging by how clean the things are, I suspect they might
actually be edible aerial tubers in this case. Pale buff skin and
pure white flesh with even a suggestion of translucence. The texture
is light and crisp -- rather "refreshing" eaten raw, but bugger all
flavour. (Rather like the tubers of _Pachyrhizus tuberosa_ in fact.)


Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

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Old 04-12-2004, 05:31 PM
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article ,
Phred wrote:
In article , wrote:

White sweet potatoes seem to be the most popular kinds in Korea and Japan.
The Korean greengrocers here all stock them and no other kinds. The ones
I see all have red skin. I find them dry and bland tasting, much inferior
to the usual moist orange or yellow fleshed kind, but perhaps in Korean
and Japanese cuisine they are prepared in a way that takes advantage of
the difference in culinary properties.


The sweet bucks of my childhood (grown by my uncle and cooked with the
roast chook for that special Sunday dinner -- at midday, in the
tropics, for crissake! ) had a slightly greenish tinge internally
when cooked and a very slightly "stringy" texture (more visual than
physical). I don't remember their skin colour, but they were
*delicious* with a crisp outer shell from the oven roasting. :-)


Interesting. IIRC, white sweet potatoes are sometimes recommended as a
substitute for "real" potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) in climates too hot to
grow the latter. They are a bit similar -- dry and starchy.

I've got a patch of the orange fleshed kind in the backyard here; but
I admit they're basically just going wild (and doing it very tough due
to high temperatures and no rain) and I rarely think to harvest some
for a feed.


They are very nutritious -- extremely high in carotenes. I cook them
whole in a covered container in the microwave and eat them hot or cold
with salt and pepper. The very moist kind, with "melting" texture, are
especially good this way.

I'm told by a bloke who was breeding them here that the very sweet,
orange types are often used as a sweet (e.g. in desserts) in other
parts of the world; but it's not a common way of using them here in Oz
AFAIK.


They are sometimes "candied", i.e. peeled, cut into chunks and baked in
a way that coats them with a sugary glaze, in the southern US. They
can also be used to make sweet potato pies, by substituting mashed
sweet potato for pumpkin or squash in a pumpkin pie recipe.

(A little more ethnobotany for non-North Americans: a pumpkin pie is
made by baking a mix of pureed squash (Cucurbita moschata or C.maxima
is generally better for this than C.pepo), milk, eggs, molasses and
spices like cinnamon and ginger with only a lower crust. For a
healthier version, cut back on the eggs, use low fat milk and skip the
crust entirely. By not using a crust, you not only avoid loads of fat
but you can "bake" it in the microwave. Pumpkin pies are often served
with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, but you can certainly skip
that as well.)
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Old 04-12-2004, 10:52 PM
Iris Cohen
 
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If someone is offering something for sale called a yam, be sure it is Dioscorea
batatas. There are some varieties of Ipomoea batatas, the sweet potato, which
are sold as yams. Both species are edible, but they probably taste different.
Your so-called purple yam is probably a sweet potato. Be assured it is edible.
The purple color is simply anthocyanin, like the color in purple cabbage. It
will probably dissolve in the water or turn color if you cook it. In this
country there is a big, sweet, orange-fleshed sweet potato which is often sold
as a yam.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra
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